Rare 1542 edition of one of the most important works of St John Chrysostom

Chrysostomus, Johannes. In sanctum Jesu Christi evangelium secundum Matthaeum commentarii, diligenter ab Arrianorum faecibus purgati, & in lucem in sacrae paginae tyronum gratiam modo recens sub minoriforma aediti.

€ 9.500,00

Rare second edition of a devotional work by St John Chrysostom (347-407 CE). The contents of this second edition are more extensive than those of the first, published five years earlier, which only contains the first two thirds of the work. The final third was published separately as "Passio Domini" in 1542 and then added to this edition. The present work is very rare on the market.

John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople, was an important early Church Father. His epithet "Chrysostomus", "golden-mouthed", denotes his eloquence. He was venerated as a saint shortly after his death and is remains important in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was known for his public speaking talent and was also one of the most prolific writers of early Christianity. Although some of his works were published in the original Greek from 1526 onwards, they spread earlier and more widely in Latin translation; his writings continued to be translated and published throughout the 16th century.

Chrysostom wrote numerous religious works, but is known especially for his homilies and commentaries. The current work contains his homilies of St Matthew, which Baur calls one of his best and most important texts. It strongly influenced Armenian Christianity and is read and studied to this day. The homilies were very likely intended as sermons and delivered to the congregation of a church by the author himself.

The design of the binding is typically Flemish. While multiple bindings from the same time period with very similar panel stamps are known, this binding is unique: not only is it larger, but it also has extra blind-tooling around the edges that other bindings lack. Most importantly, the text on the stamp is different: while all the other bindings are stamped with a line from Psalm 130, here it is Psalm 70. This variation is not mentioned in any of the reference works.